On Sobriety and Other Myths

Sobriety. Sobriety is a total myth. What hath the poor man abstained himself from? A little winter-evening rum; or smoking cigarettes during the always unkempt and terse breaks in an arduous work-life; or has he refurbished the interiors of his psyche, tired and desiring a change has he retired to his condominium where the new living room is devoid of love; or has he given up porn; or has he boycotted technology, maybe his DSLR with a frown; or maybe in order to become a saint who deeply ponders over and simultaneously accepts the offerings of his ‘samsaara’ that he had to amputate himself for the sake of his art, painting had possessed him to such an extent that he had to add a little Mughlai Cuisine ala carte of his impairing judgement.

This is a very innocent concept in first person, a bit humorous and, also according to some, a bit pitiful but it does happen to everyone. When a person starts liking anything in this world, be it material or immaterial, human or inhuman, then, under the spell of the debutante attraction, he/she would at sometime wish to be involved in that particular thing All-The-Time. If the woman loves sex, she loves sex, can’t argue with a woman and anyways which sane/smart man would, especially along these lines. So, now she can have sex with her one/many at every possible place she can dream of, be it Scotland or Outer Space. Similarly, the dope-smokers’(it had to be mentioned sometime #callitaddiction) life would be picture perfect if he could enjoy a few puffs at freedom, boredom or some sort of deep realization at peace. Also, those who do not or have not, never understand these debatably termed ‘necessities’ and this is the germination of the unwanted human trait they call ‘hypocrisy’. On a broader spectrum, life starts with a ‘trip’(Totally.Resting.In.Peace), allegedly DMT is released at birth, well I don’t remember how long my trip lasted or maybe it is still progressing ineffably and I can’t help but think life is but a ‘trip’. And, everybody is on a ‘drug’, well everybody literally is, but the fact is, everybody is addicted to something, one thing and they become so intoxicated by it that when they see someone else tripping happily or overdosing unknowingly(which is again ‘meta’ as the same is happening to them, and also hilarious) they mistake their repressed self pride, allow hypocrisy to take over, and thereby form different versions of the fact, while the fact is that there is only one truth or maybe there is no truth, only versions of it and in your lazy attempt at life you just choose the one version of the truth that you can accommodate best or more advertently the version that can accommodate you best. But what about THE truth, the validity of it always exists in the ‘unconscious’ and even before in the ‘conscious’. You get addicted to something in order to achieve any moral face of peace, before and after life you were and will be totally resting in peace, it is just the now for which you need something. It’s like Walter’s epic comeback at life claiming his drug to be HIS drug.

Ambition is also a high, it is a form of drug-dreaming and not that this drug does not have adverse effects on the imperfect body, these hip new age terms from the doctorial vocabulary indicate likewise; high blood pressure, diabetes, hyper tension, loss of appetite, migraine, etc are the names of these lifelong associations that pay their returns in the form of medical ailments to the tune of 12 pills a day for a more expensive and better computing and processing device on the penthouse of your being. I do not question the “WHYs” but then this so called 40 year old proudly sober male, who alone at night turns pale and hardly tastes alcohol and eats a vegetarian meal worry so much. He is hungry and the source of his munch-head is tension, he is high on tension just so he can earn more, but does he have the right to question any of the afore mentioned addicts, morally, is he himself any less? The law here is that one addict should never question another addicts’ addiction and everyone is an addict. So, correct me if I am wrong and even if I just try to imagine for the sake of the argument, if everybody obeys this law, then everybody in this world would be tripping at peace on their respective “addictions”until a new nature boy germinates that has a problem with the love, peace and harmony showering on this paradise while everyone’s guitar weeps. Yes, that’s acceptable because that is nature at play, what-the-fuck can anyone do about it, and what about the hippie inside you, who can and will go to any extent to get what he wants, if and when he wants it, because that is natural.

So, it can be incurred that after two pure hits of the neuro-modulating-tryptamine DMT, a person is born and rendered dead and there was a lot in between. So, by some vague hypothesis a conclusive string can be plucked and it can be said in the footnotes that ‘you are sober when you are dead’, the day I start playing blues like Brubeck that’d be the title of the ‘single’ on my super hit record. And, since death itself, like many other NATURAL phenomenon is a black-hole that it is no big deal what happens in the afterlife considering the unpredictable and absurd fundamentalism of nature itself.

Also, more on DMT, so the first time you take the commercially available substance that should be closest to your natural death but a little early maybe little late. You may just do it once that’s what he said for the sake of experience.

Side-lining towards the end and focussing on the side effects of certain addictions, no matter how fun they are, and the below mentioned quote by the great philosopher Charles Buckowski will help shine some light on what I am trying to portray.

“I like to change liquor stores frequently because the clerks got to know your habits if you went in night and day and bought huge quantities. I could feel them wondering why I wasn’t dead yet and it made me uncomfortable. They probably weren’t thinking any such thing, but then a man gets paranoid when he has 300 hangovers a year.”

And as fun and attractive as things might sound, the problem with addiction is that after a certain point in time it changes the definition of good and bad to best accommodate itself. Like it or not, it is true, the justifications and the rationalizations change but only because the perception changes, it is up to oneself to decide and believe and draw the line. A few more words quoted in the inebriated philosophical sense of Buckowski might help understand better.

“That’s the problem with drinking, I thought, as I poured myself a drink. If something bad happens you drink in an attempt to forget; if something good happens you drink in order to celebrate; and if nothing happens you drink to make something happen.”

But anyways, there is no such thing as “Sobriety”, as I said, everybody is high on something, we all are, me too. As for “Sobriety”, it’s just a “fugazi”, if you know what I mean.